Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...existence of the herpes virus and its accompanying sores and blisters has been known for at least 2,000 years. It is said to have caused so terrible an epidemic of lip sores in ancient Rome that the Emperor Tiberius banned kissing. Shakespeare also was familiar with the blight. In Romeo and Juliet, he speaks of blisters "o'er ladies' lips." In 18th century France, genital herpes was so common among prostitutes that it was termed "a vocational disease of women." Yet it was not until the 1940s that herpes was found to be a virus, and not until...
That is a useful reminder: herpes is only as devastating as a patient allows it to be. It is not life-threatening. After the first bout, pain is usually less severe. The virus can be subdued without drugs, by applying the oldest of American remedies?positive thinking. Indeed, herpes is so dependent on mood and emotion that once a sufferer regains self-confidence, many outbreaks can be tamed and managed. "I see an enormous number of people who really do cope," says Seattle's Dr. Lawrence Corey. "They have to live with having the disease, but it doesn't consume...
...pain lasts twice as long. On the other hand, to complicate matters further, there are some women who are barely aware of their herpes outbreaks and the periods during which they are high transmission risks. They sometimes have internal, hard-to-see lesions, they may be carrying the virus in their genital secretions, and a few may spread the disease via shedding from the cervix without showing any overt symptoms. For many women, the disease exacerbates their doubts about casual sex; they feel they were pushed into it by a permissive culture, then made to pay a heavy price...
...protection is absolute, and there is no sure way to know who has the disease, even after a close inspection. Says Dr. Philip Lake of Georgetown University: "As many as one out of six of the general population may from time to time be asymptomatic shedders of the herpes virus...
...u.C.L.A. researchers have reported that herpes viruses can live on towels for up to 72 hr. and on toilet seats for at least four. In one test, a seat used by a woman with thigh lesions showed live herpes viruses 90 min. later. But most doctors down-play the U.C.L.A. study. Dr. Harold Kessler of Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's, in Chicago, says herpetics should use their own towels, though the chances of passing on the infection via a towel are only about 1%. The virus dies so fast on a toilet seat, he says, that the risk of infection...